Galgiani's bill on Delta water loses its teeth

Legislation that would have forced water agencies to reduce their reliance on the fragile Delta - or risk losing out on state funding - has been significantly weakened.

Alex Breitler

Legislation that would have forced water agencies to reduce their reliance on the fragile Delta - or risk losing out on state funding - has been significantly weakened.

Senate Bill 449 by Cathleen Galgiani, D-Stockton, now merely requires the state Department of Water Resources to conduct a survey of local water-supply projects, and post the results on the Internet.

The state is already required to reduce its reliance on the Delta for water. That was part of a new suite of laws approved in 2009.

But Galgiani's bill would have added teeth to the existing law by forcing the state to withhold funding for new projects if water agencies fail to comply.

That provision was opposed by large urban and agricultural districts that rely on water exported from the Delta. Galgiani's bill, they argued in a letter, amounted to a "punitive scheme."

They also said the bill could be used to bury the governor's twin tunnels plan by forcing the state to withhold funding until every one of the many water districts involved in that plan had demonstrated compliance.

"This could jeopardize the reliability of water for 25 million Californians and 3 million acres of irrigated land while adding significant costs due to project delays and costly litigation," a coalition of water exporters warned in a letter in April.

Galgiani was not available for comment this week regarding the changes in her bill, which were recorded Aug. 14.

She had described the old bill as an effort to help water agencies comply with the new rule about reducing reliance on the Delta. It was her first legislative foray into complex Delta issues since moving from the Assembly to the Senate last year.

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, director of Stockton-based Restore the Delta, said this week that Galgiani's original bill "was a good idea."

"My belief is it was gutted because if you move districts toward regional self-sufficiency, they don't need the tunnels anymore," Barrigan-Parrilla said.